Delhi high court sets limits on initiating contempt for disobeyed directions
Delhi High Court
recently ruled that the violation of every direction issued by it does not automatically justify initiating contempt proceedings.
The division bench of Justices Anil Kshetarpal and Harish Vaidyanathan delivered this judgment on Aug 12 while hearing a contempt petition filed by 2002 Indian Forest Services officer Sanjiv Chaturvedi.
The petition accused the Central Public Information Officer (CPIO) of the
Intelligence Bureau
(IB) of willful disobedience of court orders directing the production of relevant records, including the IB report, on Chaturvedi.
The court had initially issued these orders to the IB on July 27, 2023, and reiterated them on Aug 21, 2024. The bench emphasised that contempt proceedings are a serious matter and should not be initiated lightly.
'The bench while hearing the appeal possesses sufficient power to compel a party to produce documents. However, the violation of each and every direction issued by the bench does not call for the initiation of contempt proceedings,' the order said.
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Chaturvedi, the former chief vigilance officer of AIIMS Delhi and 2015 Ramon Magsaysay Award winner, had sought the court's direction to compel the IB to provide the threat assessment report concerning his life.
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He alleged that the IB disobeyed the court's Aug 21, 2024 order. The main case is scheduled for hearing before a coordinate bench on Sept 10, 2025.
The dispute dates back to May 2014, when the then secretary of the ministry of environment, forest and climate change (MoEF&CC) requested the IB director to assess threats to Chaturvedi's life. However, the MoEF&CC declined to provide the report under the RTI Act. After Chaturvedi's appeal, the Central Information Commission ordered the IB's CPIO in April 2016 to disclose the report, but the IB challenged this order in the Delhi High Court.
In Aug 2017, the HC dismissed the IB's appeal. The IB then moved an appeal before the division bench in Oct 2017, which is still pending.
T
he bench also noted that contempt proceedings cannot be initiated against an office when the name of the contemnor is unknown. "The contempt proceedings cannot be initiated against an office since the respondent has not even provided the name of the contemnor,' the court observed.
Senior advocate Sudarshan Goel highlighted the difficulty, saying, 'When the IB has neither a website nor the name of the CPIO in the public domain, how could their name be produced before the court?' He noted that in March last year, a single bench of Justice Mini Pushkarna issued contempt notices to the CPIO of the CBI without naming him.
Goel further pointed out that under Section 2(b) of the Contempt of Court Act, 1971, willful disobedience of any court order constitutes civil contempt and can lead to proceedings.
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